A little overwhelmed by the options!

So I've just recently started dual boxing. I am on Windows 7, and have a single install of WoW. I open two windows of the game and overlay them. One for my main account and another for my clone account. I have a single macro on my clone account that will follow the main. That's it. I do switch a lot between windows and I'm wondering if I'm missing out on a better experience.

I've started to look around and have come across all sort of crazy setups which look awesome. For me, on a single computer/monitor setup with only two accounts, what makes sense to do? Is there a way to create a macro/action item on my main account that will trigger a heal/attack/whatever on the clone account? Even something that simple would allow me to spend less time swapping back and forth in the windows. Any advice in appreciated. :)

If you browse around these forums and the wiki, you'll find several how-tos

Key things you'll want to do:

Choose a keyboard and/or mouse broadcasting solution to send keystrokes from the WOW window that has focus to the other one. That other wow window will accept the keystrokes and trigger an action (usually macro-based for targetting purposes).

With one monitor on one PC you should look at some method of getting both wow windows visible at the same time. Either side by side (with your 'main' window being larger usually), or PIP (picture in picture). There are more than one tool out there that can accomplish each of these things, take a look at keyclone or hotkeynet.


The general setup of multiboxing includes "driving" on one wow screen only, with keypresses being broadcast to other wow instances running on your computer to make them perform an action. Alt-tabbing between windows is very inefficient...true multiboxing generally has you "drive" from one window. Some setups allow you to change your active window on the fly to account for a character death/etc and then drive from that other window.


Search the forums, browse the wiki, there's excellent how-to and getting started guides on the variety of software and addon solutions available to the multiboxing community.

Welcome to dual-boxing.com!

Very helpful, thanks! I also have a concern over my "normal" mode of playing my true main character, for raiding, etc. I currently have a single WoW installation. Does it make sense to create multiple installs somehow, or how does that generally work?

The WoW executable and associated data file are pretty interesting from an installation standpoint. When I first started boxing, I ran five separate instances all from the exact same WoW directory (granted, this made add-on management a bit more difficult than it really needs to be). So, you could probably leave your installation as-is with no problems. Once I started to get sick of minor annoyances (add-on management, being able to login faster, etc.) I split things into five separate directories with the bulky data files symlinked (WoW's data files are something like 13GB currently, so you don't want to have to make multiple copies of all that, and it's not at all necessary; just search the forums for symlink).



Note: I'm running Vista x64, if you're on XP or Vista x32 symlinking may be somewhat different or you may need to use an entirely different command.

this is the thread i used for symlinking. worked like a charm :)

also if you run all the clients from the same install dont you have to put in the username and password everytime? seems risky for keyloggers if you dont have an authenticator

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Originally Posted by 'Bot',index.php?page=Thread&postID=205242#post2052 42

also if you run all the clients from the same install dont you have to put in the username and password everytime? seems risky for keyloggers if you dont have an authenticator

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I know keyclone and innerpace both have mechanisms built-in to override a single default .wtf file (where the default login account name is stored) so that each client comes up with the account name already pre-populated.

Also, if you combine accounts into a b.net account then the login b.net account name is the same on both with a drop-down menu for the sub-account names (so no typing there either)

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Originally Posted by 'aboron',index.php?page=Thread&postID=205256#post2 05256

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Also, if you combine accounts into a b.net account then the login b.net account name is the same on both with a drop-down menu for the sub-account names (so no typing there either)

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Yes, I merged my five accounts onto a battle.net account as soon as they were all created. Then you just login with your battle.net account name/email address and select the option to remember your login name. That way, whenever you login after that first time, you just have to type your password. If you are running everything out of a single directory without symlinking, you'll need to click the drop-down list and pick the correct account name for each of your windows (WoW will only "remember" the selected account for whatever window closed last when you exited WoW). I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that this was what finally spurred me to look deeper into symlinking. Once your directories are symlinked correctly and you've logged in by manually clicking the server dropdown one last time, all future logins will just involve typing your password and hitting enter twice to jump into the game!

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Originally Posted by 'RdrckSmith',index.php?page=Thread&postID=205348#p ost205348

Once your directories are symlinked correctly and you've logged in by manually clicking the server dropdown one last time, all future logins will just involve typing your password and hitting enter twice to jump into the game!

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this is the best part about symlinking imo. i new keyclone had the auto name thingie but for some reason i assumed the op wasnt using it... but that is foolish of me

i run all of my wow's from one install, I didn't symlink anything.
the reason you might want sperate installs is that you might want your key binding different on your alts.
a good example is that somepeople like to have the movement keys disabled on their alternate account, I don't like this myself so I don't do that.

I usually move my main character using the mouse but when I press a movement key down they all move the same . this is for me and it depends on your play style and how you have configured everything.